Lyme Disease is Not Rare in Australia

Many Australians have tick infections such as Lyme disease. Many physicians in the USA, Europe and Europe have diagnosed Australia patients as positive. Australian tennis champion, Samantha Stosur was very sick with Lyme disease in 2007. Stosur was out of the game for at least eight months while doctors struggled to diagnose her. If Stosur feels comfortable talking about anything, it's Lyme disease and she has written an in depth description of her battle with Lyme. Her doctors have not discussed other bacteria, viruses and protozoa common in tick bites.

While U.S. physicians have been diagnosing tick and flea-born infections, Australian doctors are finally starting, very slowly, to publish material from inside the continent.

For example, published in December 2011, Dr. Peter James Mayne found clear positive tick infections within Australia. Of his findings, 55% of a pure Australian group tested positive for Lyme. 32% were positive for Babesia species; 22% were positive for Bartonella despite the fact so many new species of Babesia and Bartonella are discussed each year. 16% were positive for Anaplasma phagocytophilum. Among the 51 patients tested for Lyme, 41% had evidence of more than one tick-borne infection. Positive tests for Lyme, Babesia duncani, Babesia microti, and Bartonella henselae were demonstrated in a patient who had never been outside the state of Queensland. Positive testing for these pathogens was found in three others whose movements were restricted to the east coast of Australia.